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Headed Toward Complexity

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It’s truly amazing how much of your real life comes out in your writing, once you actually allow yourself to write at length. I teach high school. I have this bizarre proclivity to complicate things that do not need to be complicated. I can attribute this trait to absolutely no one from my past that I can recall. Maybe it’s just my thing. Some people walk tightropes, I make instructions twice as long as needed.

But this is REALLY coming out in my NanoWrimo this year. I started with the simplest of ideas and it’s spiraling into a (much worse) version of Inception, sans the flying fruit or stunning good looks. I’m inventing characters almost every night. Tonight, the novel went to a completely new depth I never anticipated.

Writers: Is this good or am I setting myself up for a lifetime struggle. I know what I want (in my mind) but how can I know if it will resonate with readers? I teach the complexities of novels. What was their true intent and what have we simply assumed? I know it doesn’t truly matter what was intended, but I still don’t want to die thinking “Nobody gets me.”